Entrepreneurship by Persons with Disabilities: Expanding Actionable Research

Call for Papers

Entrepreneurship by Persons with Disabilities: Expanding Actionable Research

Journal: Entrepreneurship & Regional Development

Submission deadline: 01 July 2026

This special issue focuses on entrepreneurship by persons with disabilities and aims to expand research on how disabled entrepreneurs navigate barriers, build ventures, and shape entrepreneurial ecosystems. It treats disability as a complex social, ethical, and institutional phenomenon and calls for more nuanced, actionable scholarship across theory, policy, and practice.

The call emphasizes that entrepreneurship can offer autonomy, income, and empowerment, but it can also reproduce exclusion, precarity, and ableist assumptions. It welcomes both supportive and critical perspectives, including work on necessity versus opportunity entrepreneurship, support networks, public policy, assistive technologies, entrepreneurship education, well-being, and cross-national comparisons.

Special Issue Editors

• Christel Tessier Dargent, Jean Monnet University, France.

• Eline Jammaers, Hasselt University, Belgium.

• Susana C. Santos, Florida State University, United States.

• Allan Discua Cruz, Lancaster University, UK.

Scope

The special issue invites conceptual and empirical papers on comparative experiences of disabled entrepreneurs, regulatory and financial barriers, partnerships and support networks, inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystems, education and training, policy and institutional environments, intersectionality, evaluation of economic and social contributions, sustainability, and critical perspectives on the darker or overlooked sides of entrepreneurship by PwDs. It especially values studies grounded in local contexts and work that incorporates the perspectives of PwDs themselves.

Submission details

Authors should submit original, unpublished manuscripts through the journal’s standard process and select the special issue “Entrepreneurship by Persons with Disabilities.” The call also notes that participation in the paper development workshops is optional and does not guarantee publication.

ServiceSetu Academics — Premier Platform for Academic Opportunities & Research Collaboration

Visit official website of the publisher